Many doctors want to have a successful, “top” practice. Not all doctors have one, of course, and many medical professionals see achieving this as an impossible dream. It doesn’t have to be a fantasy—you CAN grow you own practice to the point you’re achieving your goals and living the kind of life you want to live. At the heart of being a top practice are really only two essential keys to success: your marketing and your practice management.

Effective marketing and efficient practice management are at the center of any truly successful medical practice. Effective marketing uses fleshed-out strategies through all four pillars that allow you to connect with people so you’re reaching new and returning patients throughout your community. Efficient management uses systems and protocols to run your office smoothly, so things not only get done, but your staff is enabled to complete their tasks and enjoy their work.

It sounds relatively simple put like that. Any doctor in practice knows, of course, that the daily grind of building up your effective marketing and working through efficient practice management is the tough part. It’s a process that takes time—but it’s absolutely possible.

So how do you get there? How do you get from “skating by” to “top practice”? How do you improve your marketing and implement your practice management so it actually works for you?

Over the last decade of working with medical professionals and watching many grow from skating by to truly TOP practices, there are a number of things we know work:

Getting Support – You don’t have to go at this alone, and if you have the support of others who are there to keep you accountable, you’re more likely to follow through on any changes you need to make. That’s part of why Top Practices has the Mastermind group at our core.

Learning Everything You Can – Making random changes isn’t enough—you need to know what strategies work and how to implement them. Make a habit of learning what works. Ask others what strategies of theirs have been successful. Read books on leadership and learn from the best. This is something we do with our Mastermind group program. Our members all meet regularly on calls to share specific strategies that have worked (or not), so others can learn from their successes (or mistakes).

Getting Your Goals in Order – You need something to aim for, a reason why you’re in practice. Those goals should be the driving force behind everything you do. Every change you make should be designed to help you get closer to one or more of those goals. Get them written out and review them regularly so you stay on track.

Implementing What You Learn – At some point you have to take everything you learn from others and actually implement it, or your practice can’t grow. Start small, changing a few things at a time so you can handle it. As time goes on, implement more and more of those best practices to continually improve your marketing and practice management.

Being Consistent in Your Changes – Change is hard. People like what’s familiar and resist change, even if they know it’s for the best. You need to prioritize those changes and everything you’re doing to achieve your goals every day so they become habits and form your “new normal.”

Recording ALL Your Results – There’s no way to tell if what you’re doing is working and you’re really becoming a top practice if you don’t record your results. Keep numbers and metrics on everything important to see how your efforts are paying off, and make corrections where things are not working. Seeing your improvements over time also helps encourage you, since you’re able to see how far you’ve come!

Becoming a successful, “top” practice is absolutely possible for you. Don’t set it aside as a pipe dream. Decide this is going to be the day you stop settling and start changing. It won’t be easy. It will require work. But the results, and the ability to live the life you want to live because your practice works for you and not the other way around, is definitely worth it.

That’s why Top Practices exists. We help medical professionals reach their goals and become, well, top practices. If that’s what you really want, membership with our Mastermind group may be just what you need to reach that goal. Check out more information on our website, or contact us with your questions. You can e-mail [email protected] or call (717) 725-2679.